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Watching the Elfwegentocht parade spool by for New Scientist<\/em>, 18 July 2018<\/a><\/p>\n Astronaut Andr\u00e9 Kuipers has enjoyed his share of travel, and has no doubt racked up\u00a0some air miles. Who better, then, to wave the start flag for a parade of futuristic vehicles?<\/p>\n Spooling along at a sedate 30 miles an hour down the motorway from Drachten to Leeuwarden, this year\u2019s\u00a0European Capital of Culture<\/a>, they lacked a certain\u00a0Mad Max<\/em>\u00a0flair. But that\u2019s Friesland for you: a land of 60 languages and 128 nationalities, birthplace of Mata Hari \u2013 and when you drive through there\u2019s nothing to see but cows.<\/p>\n The Parade was the festive conclusion of the\u00a0Elfwegentocht<\/a>: for two weeks, people have got about the region without using a drop of fossil fuel. \u201cAnd now we\u2019ve shown it\u2019s possible,\u201d says Bouwe de Boer, the municipality\u2019s energy coordinator at the municipality of Leeuwarden, \u201cwe\u2019ve shown that it is possible also for the rest of the Netherlands.\u201d<\/p>\n De Boer is now project leader of\u00a0Fossylfrij Frysl\u00e2n<\/a>, the fossil-free movement in Friesland, bringing disparate environmental campaigns and start-up technologies together to achieve real goals in tiny time frames. Electric vehicles dominate the parade but as de Boer points out, there are other ways to drive fossil-free. \u201cThink of trucks and buses on hydrogen, cars on blue diesel, buses on green gas, Segways, bicycles, mobility scooters, go-karts\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Go-karts?<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s a gimcrack future, this \u2013 but then, what else can the future ever be but an amalgam of new and old, complex and homespun?<\/p>\n The two big innovative technologies on display here aren\u2019t actually \u201con display\u201d in a physical sense. You\u2019ll have to take my word for it that the \u201cBlauwe Diesel\u201d manufactured by Neste in Rotterdam from restaurant waste and residues is, indeed, satisfyingly blue. It\u2019s a pure HVO (\u201chydrotreated vegetable oil\u201d to you), low on emissions and so similar to regular diesel in the way it behaves that it requires no modifications to existing diesel engines or distribution systems. At a pump near you \u2013 assuming you live in this go-ahead region of the Netherlands \u2013 it could be the saving of an industry that some manufacturers and governments have already written off. Meanwhile Neste is trying to make its blue diesel from other sources, including old car tires, waste paper and algae.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in\u00a0the parade, under the bonnets of a handful of electric cars, sit batteries from MG Energy Systems. These are the batteries you most often find in racing cars and speedboats, and they\u2019re the brainchild of local entrepreneurs Gerard van der Schaar and Mark Scholten, whose first project, back in 2006, was a vessel to compete in the world\u2019s first solar boat race (another de Boer initiative).<\/p>\n They quickly discovered that batteries were the boats\u2019 Achilles\u2019 heel. There was simply no good battery management system available. A little over a decade later their\u00a0products power the\u00a0Furia solar boat<\/a>, which has finished first in just about every international solar boat event;\u00a0Solarwave 62<\/a>, the first hybrid yacht with electric propulsion to cross the Atlantic Ocean; the\u00a0Elektra One Solar<\/a>, the first electric-and-solar aircraft to fly over the Alps; and\u00a0the Nuna7 car<\/a>, winner of the World Solar Challenge in 2013, having achieved an average speed of 90.71 kmh for over 30 hours.<\/p>\n De Boer is proud of his region\u2019s achievements but he has his eye on the bigger picture, too. As of 27 June the Netherlands has set in train\u00a0one of the world\u2019s most ambitious climate laws<\/a>, which if it\u2019s finalised in 2019, will set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 95 per cent by 2050, with the introduction of a carbon-neutral electricity system. (The UK\u2019s mandated 2050 emissions target is an 80 per cent reduction. Sweden and Norway are set to go carbon neutral by 2045 and 2050 respectively)<\/p>\n De Boer talks excitedly about Friesland\u2019s circular energy economy. Cleaning up waste water in this region generates methane which is being harvested to boost biogas production. He talks excitedly about advances in renewable energy. Solar panels power MG\u2019s entire battery factory. He talks excitedly about\u00a0everything<\/em>, quite frankly. But it\u2019s an incidental detail which captures my attention: fruit, I am told, of another one of de Boer\u2019s endless stream of friendly, chivvying phone-calls.<\/p>\n The police looking after the parade are riding electric bikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Watching the Elfwegentocht parade spool by for New Scientist, 18 July 2018 Astronaut Andr\u00e9 Kuipers has enjoyed his share of travel, and has no doubt racked up\u00a0some air miles. Who better, then, to wave the start flag for a parade … Continue reading